Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Colorado's Copan opens Southborough office

By Christopher Calnan

A Colorado-based data storage company has opened a development center in the back yard of competitor EMC Corp., and plans to triple its Southborough head count during the coming year.

Copan Systems Inc., which develops software and hardware systems for persistent data storage, now operates the local facility with 10 engineers and service personnel. But CEO Mark Ward said he plans to grow the number to 30. The center serves as an extension to Copan's development office in Longmont, Colo.

Copan, founded in 2002, is expanding to Southborough to take advantage of the cluster of technical workers in metropolitan Boston as well as operating closer to prospective clients that operate locally, Ward said.

"We're going to leverage that recruiting pool and the customers in the Boston area," he said.

The technology is designed to store "infrequently accessed data," Ward said.

Such data is typically stored for governmental compliance or electronic discovery reasons.

Hopkinton-based EMC Corp. and California-based Network Applicance Inc. are Copan's two largest competitors, he said.

Ward, a Weymouth native, said Copan employs 170 workers and lists 150 customers.

Clients are typically in the media and entertainment industry, financial services and government.

He plans to compete with such industry giants by emulating the strategy of EMC, his former employer, while winning market share from IBM Corp. in the 1990s -- by focusing on a specialty market while offering lower prices and better service.